Facebook changes News Feed, promises better mix of stories

By Scott KleinbergChicago Tribune

Your Facebook News Feed - the mix of stories, photos and everything else - is changing, and the company thinks it's for the better.

If you've ever missed a cool item because you got tired of endless scrolling, this change to the algorithm might be just what you need. According to an announcement from Facebook on Tuesday morning, organic stories can reappear near the top of News Feed if they are getting decent interaction in the form of likes and comments.

According to Facebook's testing and the earlier announcement, people read on average 57 percent of the stories in their News Feed. They missed 43 percent of content because they didn't scroll far enough. With unread stories resurfaced, the amount of stories read rose to 70 percent.

Under the hood of Facebook's algorithm, each new story is given a score. The company has tried to place the stories with the highest scores at the top of your News Feed. Scores are based on several factors ranging from how you know the poster to the number of likes, comments and shares. Before this change, refreshing the feed would move the newest stories to the top regardless of its score. The change focuses less on the overall score and makes for a more level playing field.

Facebook says page owners will also benefit because popular organic posts could be seen by more people even if they have been around for more than a few hours. And users have the option to promote a post for a fee for even more visibility.

You should see the changes to the algorithm quickly on the website and soon on mobile apps. There will be no change to how ads are served up.